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Sorry, I'm just frustrated. I probably should focus on the fact that I at least ended up the day a winner, although to be honest I quit this session when I did for that very reason (I had been at it for 70 minutes, though, a typical session for me, so I was quitting soon anyways). I feel like I did many things right this session. I'm sure I made some mistakes, but I don't think they were huge mistakes. It's just going to take awhile to get used to the variance (I may be wrong but it seems higher than in NLHE). I guess the only thing that matters is how I do each month so I'll try to keep the bitching to a minimum on here; I just had to vent this one time.
Results today (green=win; red=loss): $2.00
Results for May: $2.00
Stud bankroll: $152.00
Results today (green=win; red=loss): N/A
Results for May: N/A
Holdem bankroll: $200.00
Statistics: Posted by Kramer545 — Sun May 21, 2006 7:29 pm
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I just got through another session. I played one table for 7 minutes until it broke up and won $7.55.
So I went to another table to take advantage of the streak I was on. I played 86 minutes on this table. Things didn't go quite as smooth. I bought in for $20 and at one point my chipstack was down to barely over $5. Fortunately I got some good breaks after that and ended up winning my money back and then some. I ended up the table down 95 cents and was actually happy with that. So altogether today I won $16.25. No record breaker, but I'm pretty happy with my play at the new site. I think I still need to work on my discipline preflop. My VP$IP was higher than it should've been (44.26 altogether today) and probably contributed to the bad run I had at the last table (I tightened up considerably at my lowest point to avoid having to buy in again and that's when I made my turnaround). I may have even ended up winning there if I'd just gotten out of a few hands cheaply when I had the chance. I think I'm still stuck in UB mode, where I felt that 10 cents for the ante is worth playing somewhat questionable hands during the cheap rounds. But with Stars' 5 cent ante I need to tighten down because there's little reason to get involved into that many hands. I could stay out of 20 hands, lose $1 in antes (well a bit more with the occasional bring-in) and easily win $5 on the 21st hand. There's no doubt I'd get paid off at this level. I doubt I'll be quite that strict (I like to get in there and mix it up from time to time as much as the next guy), but it's a good thing to think about when I feel like I'm playing too many hands on third street.
The next two days I go back to holdem and see if I still remember how to win at the $50 level.
Results today (green=win; red=loss): $16.25
Results for May: $16.25
Stud bankroll: $166.25
Results today (green=win; red=loss): N/A
Results for May: N/A
Holdem bankroll: $200.00
Statistics: Posted by Kramer545 — Sun May 21, 2006 3:50 pm
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First of all, I've decided to put a "standard' bankroll into my stud account of 300BBs, or $150. I did this because I've convinced myself that I can at least hold my own at the tables (originally I wanted to keep it smaller so I had less to lose), so I may as well start out with a small, but adequate, bankroll.
Next I've made my Party (holdem) bankroll $200.
So long as I don't move up in stakes in either game, these will be my standard bankrolls for each site. So at the end of the month, if I'm over $200 in holdem, and/or over $150 in stud, so long as that overage is over the minimum withdrawal allowed, I'll move those winnings over to Neteller (keeping $200 and $150 in each account). If it isn't over the minimum I'll just, of course, keep it in each account and add it to next months winnings and withdrawal then if it's over the minimum. Once any winnings are in Neteller, I'll take 1/3 of those monthly winnings and tranfer it to my bank account for personal use and leave the remaining 2/3s of it in Neteller. Of course, Neteller has a minimum withdrawal as well, so if that 1/3 isn't enough I'll simply leave it all in Neteller. If this occurs, the following month I will not go back to the previous month and add on those inadequate winnings (I'll just use it as a bankroll builder). This means that I must make enough each individual month before I'll let myself withdrawal anything.
On the flip side though, if I actually lose money during the month at stud or holdem and have to replinish either bankroll (I won't until I feel I have to), I must repay that money to Neteller with winnings. Only after I've repaid it in full will I figure out if I have enough left over to withdrawal.
Well I understand it anyways, so that's the important thing.
So at this moment my updated bankroll status is:
$535.97 in Neteller.
$200.00 in Party (I'm so anal that I actually went to the $.02/$.04 tables and pissed away 95 cents just to make it even. *L*).
$150.00 in UB.
Now I have the question of when I will move up in stakes in each game. Since I'm using a "community" bankroll at Neteller for both holdem and stud, how much do I need in Neteller to safely move up in limits in each? I'll get it figured out eventually I guess, and I'll have plenty of time because I'll be at the respective limits I'm at now for quite awhile. Maybe I'll use each PT and decide whether or not to move up after I've played a certain number of hands at each limit (with a good profit of course).
I did notice I'm going to have to decide where else to go other than UB when I move up limits in stud. From what I saw they usually have several $0.25/$0.50 tables, but after that it jumps up to $1/$2, skipping $.50/$1 for some reason. And that's too big of a jump in limits for me to be comfortable with. But I guess I have plenty of time to figure that out as well.
Statistics: Posted by Kramer545 — Sat May 20, 2006 10:17 pm
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I've already written yesterday where exactly my bankroll is, but I'll repost it here because it's always easier to find when I use different colors in my post as I do with the biggest losses of the week.
Party (holdem): $147.95
UB (stud): $108.19
Neteller: $630.78
Total: $886.92
It's been so weird that I have no idea exactly how much I've won or lost this week because of all the transfers and bonuses, but if you've read any of the previous posts this week (especially earlier on), you know that I had a pretty good week at the $25 tables while clearing my Party bonus. FWIW, PT shows that I won $114.02 with a ptbb/100 of 19.46 through 1,144 hands for this week playing on Party. Obviously I had some good luck when I needed it. I'm sure I lost a little playing stud, but since PTS stopped on me I wasn't able to get an exact count on it.
Before I get to the biggest losses, I just wanted to say that I'm starting completely new databases on both holdem and stud. I'm doing it for holdem because I'm moving up exclusively to $50 single table and I want that database to reflect only those games. For stud I'm just doing it because the current one I'm using is just worthless because it's been hit or miss whether I've been using it (or it was available) when playing stud and I want to start with a clean one. I know I can use my current DBs and just filter, but I'd just rather start out new with each.
Okay, I guess it's time for the biggest losses. There isn't much to report. Only two reached my criteria of $7 losses or greater. I would say that it was because I played almost exclusively at the $25 tables, but really it was just because I was extremely lucky this week and didn't take really any bad beats (or make any momumentally stupid plays). So anyways, here they are:
7 players
Loss: $8.25
I'm UTG with
![[Jd]](https://livepokerforum.com/images/smilies/Jd.gif "The Jack of Diamonds")
[Jc] ($24).I call. It's folded to SB ($24.40) who calls. BB is disconnected and folds. Pot $0.75.
Flop:
![[9s]](https://livepokerforum.com/images/smilies/9s.gif "The Nine of Spades")
[4d][3s]SB leads out for $1. I reraise to $3. SB calls. Pot $6.75.
Turn:
[4d][3s][Ts]SB checks. I bet $5. SB calls. Pot: $16.75
River:
[4d][3s][Ts][Kh]SB checks. I check.
SB wins the pot with
![[Td]](https://livepokerforum.com/images/smilies/Td.gif "The Ten of Diamonds")
[9d], two pair.Obviously I might've avoided any unpleasantries if I'd raised preflop (or maybe not; SB may have called anyways with that hand). But it was my first orbit and I wasn't sure what the table was like. I was worried about getting raised and reraised and having to throw my jacks away if it was a crazy table. Had I known it was a passive table (as it turned out to be) there wouldn't've been a question of raising. But after that I think it was just bad luck that he called my reraise on the flop with TPWK and managed to hit on the turn. Although my $5 bet on the turn with three spades on the board was quite loose, particularly since I didn't have one. I'm typically not crazy about raising JJ UTG, though I will on occasion. Had I noticed, at the time, that there was only 7 active players at the table I probably would've raised. But at Party it's sometimes a bit difficult to tell exactly how many players are active, how many are sitting out and which chairs are empty (I have the avatars turned off) unless you're specifically looking for that. It's a mistake I did not make again and hopefully won't make in the future.
8 Players
Loss: $8.10
I'm OTB with
![[Qs]](https://livepokerforum.com/images/smilies/Qs.gif "The Queen of Spades")
[Qd] ($22.60)First two players fold. MP1calls. MP2 ($8.10) raises to $1.47. CO folds. I call. Everyone else folds. Pot: $3.54
Flop:
![[Ad]](https://livepokerforum.com/images/smilies/Ad.gif "The Ace of Diamonds")
[Ts][5s]We both check.
Turn:
[Ts][5s][2h]MP2 checks. I bet $2.50. MP2 calls. Pot: $8.54
River:
[Ts][5s][2h][7h]MP2 goes all-in with last $4.13. I call.
MP2 wins pot with
[Th], a set of tens.Maybe I should've tried pushing him all-in preflop, but I don't want to be one of "those" people who do that with QQ. His preflop raise was pretty large as well, so I had a legitimate worry about KK or AA. A reraise could've been a possibility, but if he pushed all-in then what? Maybe I shouldn't be worrying about such a thing until it happens. So why did I play it? For the very reason that maybe had what he actually did have: JJ, TT, 99 or even AK or AQ. Of course on the flop it gets progressively weirder to me. The ace, of course, worries me. But he throws me for a loop when he checks it both on the flop and turn with two spades on the board; something you wouldn't expect with someone with any sort of hand. So I decide that if he doesn't want the pot I'll take it and bet on the turn. When he just calls I'm not sure where I am. Is he calling with a KK and hoping I'm betting without an ace? Does he have a draw of some sort? Maybe a JJ or smaller PP and seeing if I'm trying to buy the pot? I have no idea. So when he pushes all-in on the river I sensed a bit of desperation from a short stack (his stack was less than half of what was in the pot already), and since I'm getting almost 3:1 for my call I go ahead and see what he has. I maybe didn't play it like a pro, but he definitely misplayed his flopped set to a much greater degree. Had I had a flush draw he gave me two free cards to catch it.
I guess that's about it for now. I'm looking forward to start the next step in my poker "career" by playing at the $50s in holdem and learning how to be a winning player at stud.
Statistics: Posted by Kramer545 — Sat May 20, 2006 3:35 pm
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I had a lot of poker-related activity today. First off, I completed my Party bonus this afternoon. I two tabled for about 1 3/4 hours to do it. I ended up down like 36 cents altogether. On one table I won $12, but on the other table I made three mistakes in three different hands so that I ended up a little over $12 loss on that table. As an example of my mistakes: UTG calls, it's folded to me in the BB and I have K7o. Flop is a king high. UTG bets, I call. Turn is a blank. UTG bets, I call. River is a blank and it was only then, when UTG bet the entire pot did I realize I was facing a player who was UTG. Throughout the entire hand, for whatever reason I can't explain, I thought I was playing from the SB and I was facing the bets from the BB, rather than an UTG player. When he made that large river bet I finally figured it out, and I couldn't've folded any quicker. Up to that point I thought he was trying to buy it out of the BB.
Earlier with that same player I was in the SB and he's in the BB. It's folded to me and I call with J9o. The flop is Kxx with two diamonds. I decide to see if I can steal it. I bet, he calls. Turn is a ten, no diamond. I try again, pretty sure he was on a flush draw. He calls. River is a blank, no diamond. I figure I can't win if I don't bet, and if he was on a draw he just missed it, so I throw out a pot sized bet. He calls with his two pair KT. *L* In my defense, though, they both were diamonds.
Because of this play I thought he was trying the same thing with me on the hand I listed above. When all was said and done I was nothing more than his personal ATM. So anyways, I withdrew $700 to park in Neteller from Party. That leaves $147.95 at Party. Once the $700 was there, I deposited $46 back into my UB stud account to pay back what I took out. I paid the registration for my PT-stud and I'm happy to say I have a fully registered version at this point.
Also, after taking some advice I ordered 3 stud books: Ashley Adams and Roy Wests introductory books and since, if I ordered one more I'd get free shipping, I decided to go ahead and get Sklansky's advanced stud book. I probably won't get to that for a quite awhile, but I'll have it when I'm ready for it. I had to use my CC for the purchase, so I went ahead and withdrew the amount I paid for the books straight from Neteller into my bank account so I could put it towards my CC when it's due. I wanted to pay for these books with my bankroll.
So to update, here's where my bankroll is at: $147.95 at Party, $108.19 at UB and $630.78 at Neteller for a total of $886.92. Since I have no more bonuses to work off I'm going to start alternating the sites I play. I'll probably spend two days at Holdem to one day at Stud since I'm sure Holdem will be much more lucrative to me and I'm still interested in continuing to build my bankroll. I'm not sure playing a lot of stud is the way to do that right now.
I've decided to stick to one table at a time at Holdem though. The two I played today was sort of a trial run on whether I could read players at each table as much as I wanted to; I couldn't. So because I'm playing only one table I will be moving back up to the $50 tables after this. Sure I may be able to make more money grinding out multiple tables and playing very tight, but as I mentioned before, enjoying playing is more important to me than maximizing profits at this point and if I had to multi-table like I did this past week I'd be sick of holdem in less than a month.
Finally, I did play an hour of stud tonight as well. It's such a frustrating game when you're not getting cards. With NLHE you can make plays from time to time, stealing pots or whatnot, to cut your losses a bit, but if you aren't getting anything a stud you just watch your chipstack dwindle a little at a time without being able to do anything about it. I was very selective today with my first three cards, and aggressive when I had a good hand, but they rarely materialized to anything better and I'd typically end up folding my single pair. I started at $25, got down to below $15, then actually did catch a couple of lucky breaks towards the end and got it back up to around $20. I finished about $6 down, adding in the bonus I got today. I'm actually not unhappy about my play tonight. I think I did things mostly right (I'm sure I made a mistake here or there of course). I wanted to give a nod to Piers about his suggestion to play high pocket pairs or overcards aggressively on third street to build a pot. Towards the end I did this with (AK)J when my jack was high on the board. I played it very aggressively and built a big pot and was fortunate to hit an ace high flush on 6th street and take down that nice sized pot. It helped me cut my losses at any rate.
Well I'm pooped, so I'm going to close this out and get to bed.
Statistics: Posted by Kramer545 — Fri May 19, 2006 11:17 pm
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The tables reverted back to being very tight again. The rake/non-rake was 61%. I just got bored with it after 50 minutes so I quit. I have 150 raked left to go and I think I'm going to play a maximum of two tables at a time to finish it off. I didn't like how I had no read whatsover on those pocket tens. And I have 3 days to finish off 150 hands so that shouldn't be much of a problem.
I've already started the process to get PTS. I just don't like being without it. I just took out enough from my stud bankroll and put it into Neteller and when it shows up there I'll register PTS. Then when my bonus clears I'll pay back my stud account (I'd just use the stud bankroll completely for it but I'm already stretched thin as it is).
I did play about a 45 minute stud session a bit ago and it went pretty well. I think I was much more disciplined on 4th street to throw my hands away when I didn't improve (or just got a marginal improvement like a 3rd suited card or bottom pair) so I think I saved myself lots of bets there. My biggest leak, I believe, is catching something even marginally good on 4th street and end up calling bets on that street and maybe two more before I give it up as a lost cause. I ended up about $11 so I'm pretty happy about that since I wasn't getting really lucky with my cards in general. I finally felt I outplayed a few people today, if only by being much more selective on third street and throwing away hands that didn't seem promising enough on 4th.
Statistics: Posted by Kramer545 — Thu May 18, 2006 5:28 pm
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I think along with PTS when I clear the Party bonus I'm also going to get a good introductory stud book as well. emmasdad mentioned an Ashley Adams book so I'll start with that one unless someone has another suggestion. I may even get two. I have like 12 books on holdem so I guess having two for stud wouldn't be totally bizarre. Right now I feel like very much a break even stud player (even though I'm actually down just a little bit) and I think I'm missing some important information that would tilt me towards being a winning player, if only slightly so.
Statistics: Posted by Kramer545 — Wed May 17, 2006 9:06 pm
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Anyways I won $23.22 today. What's weird is that I won some on each of the three tables I played on. That's very unusual for me. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and for me to come here reporting a $50 loss; I've won 10/13 "sessions" (tables) since dropping down to $25 to get this bonus and my 3 losses were $5.40, $1.95 and $0.45. My PTBB/100 during this period is 33.21 and I've won a total of $110.58. This is a 3 day period, 666 hands. I've gotten my Party account up to $774.96.
69% raked/non-raked hands so that wasn't too bad. Got another 151 raked so I'm down to 266 left to go.
I gotta start thinking about what I'm going to do when this bonus clears. First off, of course, is to use much of the bonus to buy PT-stud. I'm actually not sure, when I clear the bonus, whether I'll go back up to the $50 tables or stay at the $25s. The $25s have certainly been making a valid argument this week for me to stay there. That and the fact that I'm still a little underfunded for the $50 tables tells me I should probably just stay where I am when the bonus is done. I'll decide when I get a little closer, but right now I'm leaning towards the $25.
What I leave in Party's account will depend on which level I play. If I stay at the $25s I'll probably leave about $125 and park the rest in Neteller to await the next bonus offer. If I play at the $50 tables I'll probably have to leave $200+ there.
Also I've been trying to figure out a good withdrawal system for me; meaning money from my winnings that I withdrawal for personal use. I won't start retroactively which means what I have in my accounts right now isn't available for withdrawal. I think what I'm going to do is start making withdrawals monthly (assuming I win of course). I'll wait until June 1st and keep track from there on. I'll withdrawal 1/3 of my winnings each month starting in July. I think that's a pretty good number and it'll keep my bankroll building. Maybe it'll keep me more motivated to keep playing. I have days now where I have trouble wondering why I'm playing and if it's worth it, because I really don't see any benifits of it other than the pride of being a winning player. Withdrawals from time to time will let me see something concrete from my play.
Oh but my stud account (if by some miracle I actually win enough that I can withdrawal 1/3 of my winnings and still have it be more than the minimum WD that UB allows) is off-limits. I feel I need to keep as much in there as possible until I get a decent bankroll going. If I can somehow manage to get that BR up to $500 then I may begin considering withdrawals.
I guess that's about all I have to say for now.
Statistics: Posted by Kramer545 — Wed May 17, 2006 4:42 pm
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I really don't have anything more to say today, so I'll make this a rare short entry.
Edited to add: Ugh, a bad session at stud though. Down about $15. Still have my BR over $100 but just barely. My big hand was a straight and was beaten by a river flush. Otherwise I just couldn't catch any cards. I've yet to really learn how to not lose so much money when that happens.
Statistics: Posted by Kramer545 — Tue May 16, 2006 3:41 pm
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I played a single table for about about 20 minutes and kept seeing non-raked hand after non-raked hand. Like me, I guess a lot of people are trying to clear a bonus and are playing very tight. So I decided to add a second table. Some of the tables I opened had VP$IPs of less than 10% after 10 minutes or so, so I was changing tables immediately when I noticed that. The best table I found in the beginning was 22% and I felt lucky to find that. Finally I found a few in the 20s and one in the 30s (made that table seem very, very loose-passive. *L*). I ultimately ended up playing 4 tables at a time. Even with that I played a total of 274 hands with only 159 raked for a % of 58. I'm kind of glad at this point I don't have to try and clear 1000 raked hands. *L* I have 543 left to go.
The best part was that I managed to get a decent win at the tables despite how rocky they were. I won $36.66 by the end of my session.
I was very fortunate on my last orbit of the day. I'd just opened this table, but right after I did I suddenly felt it was time to quit since I was losing interest a little bit. So I go ahead and uncheck the auto-post blinds thingy on all my tables. I had only 9 hands at this last table, so I probably pissed a few people off when I left after that first orbit up $19.55.
I managed to catch AA two hands in a row. First against QQ (on a rag flop) and then against AK (with a king high flop). I didn't get their stacks but I got a couple of nice pots. Neither one bet or raised into me, but called my bets immediately. I'd guess that during a non-bonus period I'd've easily gotten their entire stacks. But to be honest I wasn't any better than they were. When each player kept insta-calling my bets through the turn, and in each case they checked on the river, I was quite nervous about losing a big pot myself at that point so I checked behind them. I was kicking myself afterwards for checking the river (I probably could've gotten a call from each), but I still didn't want to lose a large pot in my final orbit of the day with a single pair. Also my last hand before the BB I caught a set of fours and won a medium pot there, so all-in-all, it was a pretty good orbit.
I've got my holdem bankroll up to over $700 finally. Along with my stud bankroll of $118.30, $9.86 still in Neteller and $701.04 in Party my total bankroll is $829.20, which is far more than I've ever had in my previous incarnations of a poker player. It almost gives me hope that one day I may even move up in limits.
Statistics: Posted by Kramer545 — Mon May 15, 2006 6:20 pm
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